Category: Oceania

ChristChurch Cathedral, two thousand and one days later

~ The PhotoDiarist

2001 days ago, I paid NZD 1.50 to climb 134 steps up the spire of ChristChurch Cathedral in New Zealand with my friend Vania. Now that spire is just a pile of rubble in the centre of the South Island’s most populous city, after an earthquake destroyed buildings and killed dozens of people.

Back when we visited Christchurch, in August 2005, I took a bunch of photos from the Cathedral spire 30 metres above ground:

Cathedral Square, Christchurch, New Zealand
Chess in Cathedral Square, Christchurch, New Zealand
ChristChurch Cathedral spire, New Zealand
ChristChurch Cathedral spire, New Zealand

Vania returning down the spiral staircase back to ground level:

Returning down the spiral staircase. ChristChurch Cathedral, New Zealand

After our visit to the cathedral, we went and enjoyed hot chocolate at Starbucks, appreciated the beautiful weather, and laughed as we watched this seagull eating someone’s unfinished cake.

A seagull enjoys someone

None of my Kiwi friends were badly hurt in this earthquake, but it’s still pretty sad. Christchurch is a great city, and it’ll take a long time to recover from this.

Impersonations

~ The PhotoDiarist ~ 2 Comments

I nearly forgot about this post. I planned to put these photos up a long time ago, but because I was so busy it slipped my mind. I only remembered because I’m working on a policy paper worth 50% of my grade. As such, I am bound by the laws of procrastination to remember absolutely every single thing that needs to be done, other than the task at hand. So, without further ado, I give you Impersonations and Other Poses, starring Ron Boaz in his second feature modelling show, with guest star Holly Brattberg.

Toroa House

~ The PhotoDiarist

One year to this day, just before midnight NZ time (which is right now in Vancouver) I walked into the flat that would be my home for the next 9 months in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Time passes pretty quickly sometimes – for a while I thought my time in New Zealand would stretch on forever, then suddenly, as with all good things, it came to an abrupt end and I was back on a plane bound for Asia once more.

The problem with physics is that particles, behaving like waves, can exist in two places at the same time. Unfortunately, people cannot.

Ink Art

~ The PhotoDiarist ~ 7 Comments

On the 23rd, three of us went to the tattoo parlour. One of us got a tattoo. It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Anna. That leaves Vania.

Anna drove us to Dig A Tattoo, where Vania had an appointment for 330pm.

The dude printed out a copy of her tattoo and went into his ‘office’ to prepare a stencil (it’s really an ink transfer… sort of like a temporary tattoo to guide the tattoo man’s needle).

After some waiting, the three of us went in to the room. First Mr Tattoo guy cleaned the foot.

Then he applied the stencil thing.

Then he set up his ink needle.

Then he started tracing those lines very, very carefully.

Anna spent the first half hour holding Vania’s hand, and I took the second shift. Turns out I got the worse half of the deal, as the tattoo became more painful toward the end. I tried taking a photo of my hand with the white marks where it was being squeezed, but it didn’t turn out.

The finished product: